I have a 80gb ipod & a 30 gb hardrive, can I sync, delete & add more songs?

Question

I bought an 80gb Ipod as a present and I want to fill it up. But I only have a 30gb hardrive. Is it possible to sync all the songs I have in Itunes to my Ipod, then delete the songs in Itunes, add new songs and then sync the new songs to the Ipod without delete the previously synced songs on the Ipod? If so, how can I accomplish this?
Thanks!

Answer 1

You can delete songs from your iTunes/computer hard drive after transferring them to the iPod, and for this you need to set your iPod to manage the songs manually.
However, this is an extremely risky option because when (and not if) there comes a time to restore your iPod, which is a very common fix for iPod problems, then all the music would be erased. If you no longer have the music in iTunes (or any other back up), then all that music would be lost.
What if the iPod were lost/stolen/needed repair? Again, the music would lost. I strongly recommend a back up, and if computer hard drive space is in short supply, you should seriously consider an external hard drive. They are not expensive, and the cost is well worth it when compared to the loss of all your precious music.
At the very least back up your music to either cd or dvd before deleting it, particularly any purchased music/videos, as this would have to be bought again if it were lost. See this.
Backing up your iTunes library.
The iPod is not reliable enough to use it as a long term storage device, and these forums are littered with posts from people who decided to use it as such and ended up losing all their music.